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~ )

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[desperate_times_right]

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Chloe warns. “It sucks. Distilled pine extract or something. Tastes like furniture cleaner, but it does the job.”

[brushoff]

"Is it alcoholic?" Dorian asks. "Does it get you fucked up? If so, I can happily overlook the taste. I've drunk worse things than distilled pine extract or whatever it is."

[desperate_times_right]

“It does get you fucked up,” Chloe concedes. “And no one’s gone blind yet.”

[brushoff]

"Then that is perfectly fine with me. I would prefer the top shelf stuff, but if it gets me fucked up but doesn't kill me? Well, beggars can't be choosers. And I know I am going to need a decent amount of alcohol to help survive this place."

The wilderness sucks.

[desperate_times_right]

“You might be able to get something else from the pig next Christmas, but it only lets you get one thing.”

There might be something he wants more, like non-haunted cocaine.

[brushoff]

"I realize that this is probably a perfectly normal thing here and you'll respond with something like 'everybody knows about the pig,' but I have to ask: what pig?"

[desperate_times_right]

“Everybody does know about the pig.” It might not be true anymore what with there actually being new people for once, but she can't resist saying it.

“Every Christmas this fuckoff huge boar shows up and it'll puke up anything you might ask for with a few limits.”

[brushoff]

Dorian's eyes sparkle with excitement as he points out, "I am absolutely going to ask the fuckoff boar for more cocaine."

[desperate_times_right]

“Right?” Chloe had used hers to get something for a friend, which is embarrassing so she won't say it. “So what you have now has to do you until then.”

[brushoff]

"That...might be a problem, as I've used most of it already." Dorian sighs, a dramatic sigh like he is the most oppressed person in the world before he points out, "I'm the most ill-fitting person here! I had to do something to deal with the boredom."

[desperate_times_right]

“Sounds like you’re going to have to come up with something new pretty soon.” Sorry dude, but it's a long time until Christmas. “Do you really think you're more ill-fitting than a hyper-religious high schooler?”

A bit pathetic.

[brushoff]

"Oh God, there's a high schooler here?"

Ew. Dorian's nose wrinkles with annoyance as he very quickly points out, "No, she's more ill-fitting than I am. Why is there a child?"

[desperate_times_right]

“There used to be a whole bunch of kids, but I think there are only two left now.” Levi seems so much older than Kate but she's pretty sure they're actually around the same age.

Chloe sweeps her arm out as they approach the farm. “Behold, home sweet home. It doesn't look like much because idiots burned down the barn last summer, but the greenhouse is over there and the house is there in the back.”

[brushoff]

Dorian lets out a low whistle as he looks over the farm. It honestly looks nice. Comfortable. Honestly, why did he already put down roots at the church? He should have poked around to learn more about the people here first!

"I'm not much of a gardener, but I can at least dig trenches and pull weeds. I don't mind helping out as needed."

[desperate_times_right]

Isn't it great? Chloe didn't even have to do all the renovations! Tim did that and then left! Her greenhouse really is the gift that keeps on giving.

“The more hands the better, really. I pay either in vegetables or hot showers, or a combination of the two. You don't strike me as a bloke who cooks, though.”

[brushoff]

"Alas, I live exclusively on takeaway and kebab shops."

Unsurprisingly, Dorian has never grown a vegetable in his life.

"However, manual labor sounds easy enough. That, I can do."

[desperate_times_right]

“They do still serve meals at the community centre, I think.” Chloe herself doesn't often head over there other than on feast days, but that seems to be the story. “Closest thing we’ve got to takeout. There used to be a restaurant over in Lakeside, but it burned down and then the guy who ran it disappeared.”

[brushoff]

"It's a damn shame I'm a terrible chef," Dorian muses, with a little shrug. "A restaurant seems like a good idea for everyone involved. Something to build community spirit and keep people fed."

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah, me too.” British potatoes are about at the limit of her skill. “The restaurant guy used to cook for me. It was great.”

[brushoff]

"I wonder if the Aurora or the Darkwalker or whatever the fuck brought us here takes requests," he muses. "I'll put together a petition to bring over a chef."

[desperate_times_right]

“Ugh, with our luck we’d get the Victorian chef from the boat.” Who even knows how that would go.

[brushoff]

"What boat even is it? The Medusa was technically a raft, but still...."

Dorian winces slightly.

[desperate_times_right]

“Later. A bunch of sad sack Northwest Passage guys. Terror, I think.”

Not exactly a promising name.

[brushoff]

That wince grows even deeper.

"John Franklin, right? There was a big to-do back in the 1980s when they unearthed one of those ice mummies. I think I read about it in Time."

Maybe? He's not sure. The 1980s were a bit of a weird decade for Dorian—half of it he remembers crystal clear, the other half might as well not have existed.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's one of those naval mistakes where they absolutely ate each other, but because good proper Englishmen don't do that, they probably blamed it on the natives in the press."

[desperate_times_right]

“The very same, and they did, and there are very hard feelings here about it, so tread carefully, I guess.”

Some people don't seem to care much but those people (Billy) are freaks so whatever.

“Not a chef I’d want around here, all the same.”

We are ignoring that Hickey cooked and fed her part of a man’s leg last summer, thank you.